Valve says rising RAM and storage costs pushed the standalone headset beyond its original pricing plans.
The Steam Frame is finally almost here. Nearly a year after Valve unveiled its standalone VR headset alongside the Steam Machine and new Steam Controller, the company has now confirmed how much its return to VR will cost.
Quite predictably, though, it won’t come cheap. Valve has confirmed the Steam Frame’s pricing and opened reservations through its official Steam page on Monday (14 September), with the headset priced higher than US$1,000.
How much is Valve’s Steam Frame?
A standalone Steam Frame with 256 GB of storage (with a microSD slot) will set you back US$1,059. And if you want more storage, the 1 TB version will cost an eye-watering US$1,299. Both versions will run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 16 GB of RAM, and will include two controllers, an eye spacer for those with glasses, and a dedicated Wi-Fi 6 GHz dongle for PCVR streaming.
Valve also confirmed the pricing for launch accessories, which include a US$29 power supply unit (which doesn’t come with the standalone Steam Frame set). There’s also a US$59 Ergonomic Accessories Kit and a US$49 Accessory Replacement Kit for the face gasket and cushions.
These prices were higher than Valve and most tech analysts expected. In a report by BBC, Valve developer Jeremy Selan said that global RAM and storage market prices drove up the cost.
“We set out to come out with a device that would have been far more affordable, but the global RAM market, the global storage market have impacted us the same way they’ve impacted everybody,” Selan said.
As for whether the solution could have been to develop the Steam Frame with less RAM, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais told IGN in an interview that “things were a little bit too far in development to fully rethink the product.”
That said, the Steam Frame’s price isn’t an anomaly compared to other dedicated PCVR headsets currently on the market. The Samsung Galaxy XR costs around US$1,799, while the Pimax Crystal Light costs US$899, although it is a wired headset.
How to buy the Steam Frame
If you aren’t fazed by the price and have been planning to buy a Steam Frame anyway, how you can actually get one will depend on where you live.
Valve is using a reservation system for buyers in North America, the UK and EU, and Australia, with sign-ups open through the Steam Frame’s official Steam page until 17 September at 10:00 AM PT / 18 September at 1:00 AM SGT. Each region has its own reservation list, and buyers will also need to choose between the 256 GB and 1 TB models when signing up.
Signing up early won’t give buyers an advantage, either. Once the window closes, Valve will randomise everyone who registered before the deadline to determine who gets the first chance to order and who lands on the waitlist. Anyone who joins after the cut-off will simply be placed behind those already waiting.
The first orders are expected to start going out on 18 September, with Valve contacting more people on the waitlist by email as additional units become available.
Things work a little differently in parts of Asia. KOMODO STATION, Valve’s authorised distributor in the region, is handling Steam Frame sales in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong separately, while a South Korean launch is also planned for a later date.
If the reservation queue ends up anything like the Steam Machine and Steam Controller, though, some buyers could still be waiting through the end of the year and potentially into the first few months of 2027.
